Higbee girls defeat Bevier on Senior Night

Friday

The 5'5 Higbee point guard joined teammates Shelby Clark and Alexis Whisenand in being honored on Senior Night before their home basketball fans and she was named the 2019 Courtwarming Queen.

Westfall also led her Lady Tigers to team to a 60-42 victory against Bevier while scoring a season-high 19 points on 8 of 12 shooting from the field, and Grace also pulled down eight rebounds and had three assists to her name. Her career-best is 23 points accomplished last season during district play she said.

“The past three years Geocie Sager was our point guard and I was the shooting guard, but with me switching over as the point guard has been a big change and a bit of a struggle for me because I'm so use to doing things differently,” said the four-year varsity starter Westfall. “I'm still learning the different responsibilities as a point guard. I feel that my ball handling and attacking the rim has improved, and this has forced me to look over the floor more and see where the ball needs to go.”

Devin Clark, a Lady Tigers junior, pumped in 18 points and had seven rebounds for the cause and her senior sister Shelby tossed in nine points, 10 rebound and five steals. Also scoring was Whisenand and Jillian Huddleston with six points each, and Macey Whisenand chipped in two.

Higbee (8-5) led from start to finish and the non-league contest's ending was never in doubt.

Westfall's buzzer-beating score in transition handed Higbee a 21-12 first quarter lead and she coincidentally was the last player on the floor to score before halftime arrived when she penetrated the paint from the right to score off the glass at 0:04 to deliver the Lady Tigers a 33-21 advantage.

For much of the night, the Higbee girls executed an effective 1-3-1 zone against Bevier that caused their guests to often put up some unbalanced shots as they tried to dribble drive toward the rim.

“This zone has been our bread-and-butter defense these past four years and it's worked pretty well for us. We have been working more on using a man-to-man defense this year and we plan to use it more than we have in the past,” Westfall said. “The 1-3-1 works for us because we communicate pretty well with this, and we move into position well as the ball rotates.”

The early minutes of the third quarter appeared messy for both schools with several misfired shots and ball handling issues arising. But in the final two minutes of play Higbee outscored Bevier 11-2 to extend its margin to 47-27 when the fourth quarter arrived.

“We did not change to do anything differently. We talked about what we needed to do about fixing the small things that needed addressed, and we just executed things better to build a bigger lead,” said Westfall.

Bevier (3-8) would not easily surrender. In the final segment the Wildcats connected on four threes to cut its deficit to 11, but Higbee girls buckled down to put a stop to that progress and carry on toward the 20-point triumph.

“I think defensively we owned them from start to finish. It was one of our more sound games that we've played defensively. In the fourth quarter we gave them more open looks and they hit some threes to make the score closer and then we got back to playing better defense again toward the end to take those kind of shots away,” said Lady Tigers coach Tanner Burton. “I tip my cap to (Bevier) coach Ryan Remole in what he has done and I have much respect for him. The last couple of years we've been able to pound them, winning games by 40 to 50 points, but he has done a nice job of turning their program around and improve. While this one has been one of their most lopsided games of the season, many of their games this year have been closer so they are doing a lot of things for the better, and as you can see with their play until the end they are a team that will not quit playing.”

Burton also said he was pleased to see his three seniors to celebrate a win on a night that recognized them and their parents, as well as the school celebrating courtwarming.

Despite having four weeks remaining in the regular season and a Feb. 14 home date against La Plata on its ledger, Burton said the school district chose Thursday to celebrate its seniors in case inclement weather forces a conference game to be rescheduled on Feb.14 for either Higbee or La Plata as district tournaments may begin play the day following.

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